The Auslander (8 page)

Liese Kaltenbach spoke. ‘Elsbeth dear, we have a perfectly good doorknocker.' They had a magnificent brass lion on their front door. Elsbeth was looking hurt.

Kaltenbach saved the day. ‘My dear,' he said to his eldest daughter, ‘your mother is right. This splendid knocker shall go instead to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. I will have it placed on the door of my office.'

In early January, when Elsbeth was out at work, Herr Kaltenbach called Peter over. ‘This knocker,' he said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘it's not quite the thing for the Institute. How about taking it to your HJ den? They'll be delighted with it.'

Peter agreed at once. He liked to please Herr Kaltenbach. But he didn't like it either. Walking to his HJ meeting, he tipped it in a dustbin.

.

CHAPTER 15

February 1942

.

Later that winter, Peter's HJ squad were doing an evening Winter Relief collection in an apartment block in Geisbergstrasse. It was a large nineteenth-century building, with some of the stairwells and corridors partially open to the outside. Peter had begun to resent the amount of time he was expected to perform this kind of ‘voluntary' work. He would rather be reading at home, or studying in the library. When no one else was with him, he always asked for money in a manner that made it clear he was not expecting any. Walter Hertz, his squad leader, often chided him for returning with the lowest amount. But Peter didn't care. He was good at everything else they asked him to do.

Most of the other boys had finished their rounds and gone home. Peter had three more floors to do when he heard a commotion below.

Four floors down, in the courtyard, he could see a small group of HJ boys he did not recognise. They had surrounded another boy in shabby clothes and were prodding and kicking him. ‘Jew boy! Bloodsucker!' they taunted. ‘What have you been out stealing?'

Struck by a mischievous impulse, and without thinking of the consequences, Peter picked up a potato bag full of rubbish that one of the residents had left outside their door, and hurled it down upon the boys. He watched it burst over their heads and ran for his life as their outraged cries rang through the building. The apartment block was a maze of corridors and stairwells and Peter's first instinct was to go up – after all, he supposed, they would expect him to run away from the building.

He reached the sixth floor and banged on the first door he came to. ‘Good evening, madame,' he said to the old lady who opened the door. ‘I am collecting for the Winter Relief fund. Could I ask you for a donation?'

She asked him in and he seized his opportunity. Some old people, who lived on their own, liked a chat when the boys came calling. She had some gingerbread wafers she thought he might like to eat. Peter stayed for half an hour as she talked about her grandson, who had been posted to Norway with the
Wehrmacht
. ‘Nice and out of the way,' she said. ‘Nothing going on there!'

She looked disappointed when he said he had to go. The HJ boys were still there, marching indignantly up and down the corridors in their stained uniforms. ‘Excuse me, comrade,' said one. ‘Have you seen anything suspicious here? Half an hour ago we were assaulted by a cowardly Jew-lover.'

‘I have been visiting my grandmother,' said Peter. ‘But thank you for your warning. I have a good sharp knife to defend me.'

On the way home Peter kept sniggering to himself. He didn't quite know why he'd thrown the rubbish and he felt strangely proud of himself. But that night he woke before dawn and worried about what they would have done if they had caught him. At breakfast he looked at Traudl and wondered, if she were a boy, would she have been part of that gang of bullies.

Now she was fourteen she had moved up from the
Jungmädel
to the
Bund Deutsche Mädel
and had been selected as the squad flag bearer. She took her duties very seriously. Most nights, when she was not collecting for the Winter Relief fund, she would be knitting socks and gloves for the soldiers out in Ostland. She had won her ‘Life Rune' proficiency badge for First Aid remarkably quickly, and would ask Charlotte and Peter if she could practise splints and bandages on them.

Charlotte didn't mind – it was part of her duty to help her big sister – but Peter always felt uncomfortable when Traudl practised on him. He found her undiluted company increasingly boring. As she worked away, she would chat about who she was supposed to ‘Heil Hitler' to when she saw them in the street, and which items of BDM clothing you were allowed to wear outside of meetings and parades.

.

On the way home from school a few days later, Peter stopped off at the library, as he often did. He wanted to find a book that would tell him more about Poland. He kept hoping one or two would have slipped through the net. But nothing seemed to have escaped the beady eye of Frau Knopf, who had never forgiven him for asking for a Polish author.

In one section of the library there was a small alcove with a desk and chair behind one of the bookshelves. Peter often went there when he wanted to cut himself off from the rest of the world. It was a good place for quiet study. Today he could see through a small gap in the books that the desk was occupied. He recognised who it was at once – Anna Reiter, the pretty, dark-haired girl he had first noticed at the athletics display in Charlottenburg. Segur had said her family lived close by, and Peter had seen her once or twice out in the street.

Peering through the books, Peter relished the moment. Picking up a book from the opposite stack, so as not to disturb her, he pretended to read, all the while watching her through the gap.

Anna was holding a book with a picture of Hitler on the back cover. She held it up and looked on it with disapproval. Certain that no one could see her she began to ape the posture and expression of the Führer. Hand on hip, starch upright, straight back, her face mirroring Hitler's – that of an indignant, petulant child.

Peter could not believe his eyes. Anna, the squad leader in the BDM! Not wanting to be discovered he quietly moved away and began to search for some other books to help him with his studies. When he left the library and began to walk home, she was there, not five metres in front of him. He caught up with her.

‘You're the Polish boy, aren't you,' she said, neither friendly nor hostile. ‘You live at the Kaltenbachs?'

Peter nodded. ‘Yes. It's close by you. My name is Peter Bruck. Perhaps I could be allowed to walk you home? It's a dark night, you never know who might be lurking around the corner.'

She laughed. ‘The Führer has made our streets safer, that is for sure.'

They fell into stilted conversation. A man with a large Alsatian dog walked past. ‘How the Führer loves his dogs,' she remarked casually.

A rebellious thought flashed into Peter's head. ‘Of course he loves his dogs,' he said. ‘They are obedient, unquestioning.'

She gave him a sharp look. Then she laughed. ‘Well, wouldn't we all like our friends to be like that?' she said.

‘I don't know,' said Peter. ‘It's nice to have friends who have their own opinions, don't you think?'

She stayed silent. Then she said, ‘It is a dangerous conversation we are having, Master Bruck. I'm sure Professor Kaltenbach would not approve of such reckless freethinking.'

Peter felt bolder. ‘Professor Kaltenbach would be severely disappointed,' he said.

An awkward silence hung in the air. They barely spoke for the rest of the walk home. Peter began to worry that he had said too much. But when they reached Anna's apartment block she said, ‘Thank you for walking me home. This was a most interesting conversation. We must talk again some time.'

When Peter reached the door to his own apartment, he felt like he was walking on air.

.

CHAPTER 16

April 1942

.

Anna and Peter saw more of each other after that. They were both frequent visitors to the library, and Peter often stayed there to study. He could get a lot of work done in one of the quiet corners. Professor Kaltenbach approved. He was not totally sympathetic to the Nazi view that boys needed more exercise than education. If Peter wanted to be a doctor or a scientist, after he had done his duty as a
Luftwaffe
pilot, he would have to pass some tough exams.

Anna began to join him at his desk, and work alongside him. She was studious – she certainly didn't sit there to chatter. Then, when it had gone dark, they would walk home together. Sometimes they would talk about friends they both knew, sometimes they would whisper about their homework. One week they both had the same essay: ‘How did Adolf Hitler save the Fatherland?'

‘There's not a great deal of scope for argument in that question, is there?' said Anna. ‘I just trotted out the usual stuff about communists and Jews and Versailles. It took me ten minutes. It would be nice to do something a little harder.'

Peter loved it when she talked to him like that. Her and Segur.

One day in early April, when buds were sprouting on the trees and the sunshine started to feel warm on their faces, Anna asked Peter to come for tea the following Tuesday. His imagination ran riot. He knew, because she had told him, that both her parents would be away. Frau Reiter was off to Falkenburg, reporting on one of the elite Ordensburgen schools where the cream of the Hitler Youth were sent. Colonel Reiter would be flying to the Führer's headquarters in East Prussia to deliver a report.

Peter did not tell the Kaltenbachs that the Reiter parents were away, although he had a feeling they wouldn't mind. They knew about Anna and had been keen to encourage the friendship.

Peter was nervous. Was she expecting him to kiss her? So far their friendship had been just that – a friendship. But maybe it was turning into something else.

Segur would know. He seemed to be more up on
that sort of thing. But when Peter talked to him as they walked home from school, he blushed. ‘I'll kill you if you tell anyone, but I've only ever kissed a girl once,' he said. ‘When we were on a HJ/BDM hike.'

The day came. Peter arrived with a bunch of wild flowers and two cream cakes. Anna hurried him in, anxious that the neighbours should not see him. ‘Frau Brenner,' she whispered and tilted her head to the door across the corridor. ‘She'll only gossip . . .'

She made him a lemonade and started to peel potatoes while they talked – about the war, her brother Stefan who was serving out in Ostland, about their friends, about school. It was inconsequential chatter. Peter began to daydream as she cooked. There she was, standing by the window, with her white apron over her blue dress, spatula in hand, turning schnitzels. The smell of hot pork filled the kitchen. He felt very grown up all of a sudden, having someone his own age preparing his supper.

After they had eaten they sat in the living-room armchairs, facing each other and drinking coffee. Peter wondered if she was waiting for him to kiss her. But he didn't feel bold enough.

‘Let's listen to the radio,' said Anna. ‘See if we can find some good music?'

The radio was on a coffee table by the window. Anna turned the dial and stations flitted by. The news reported U-boat triumphs in the Atlantic, another programme announced increases in tank production, then there was a play . . . Anna left it on and for a brief moment they listened to the tale of a Hamburg girl whose father would not let her go out with an SS man.

Then she came and sat on the arm of his chair and said in a low voice: ‘Do you ever listen to the BBC?' Peter was shocked by her boldness, but he was thrilled that she was confiding in him.

‘Kaltenbach would have me down at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse before I knew what had hit me,' said Peter. ‘Besides, there's almost always someone in at our apartment. Frau Kaltenbach or Elsbeth. Even the girls would report me at once. Why, do you?'

‘Shall we?' said Anna.

Peter was anxious now. ‘But what if the neighbours hear through the walls? I'm sure one of them would report you.'

‘We'll turn the volume right down and listen with a blanket thrown over us. That should do the trick!' said Anna. ‘Mutti and Vati do it too. They don't like me to know, but I caught them once when I got up in the night.'

Anna fetched a blanket from her bed. They huddled together beneath it and she turned the dial. She knew exactly which spot to find.

She'd obviously done this before, thought Peter. Finding the station was easy enough but getting the volume was difficult. It was either too quiet to hear properly, or would leap out loud enough for the neighbours to hear.

The signal was being blocked too, with a piercing whistling noise that rose and fell to make it difficult to hear what was being said. ‘They always do that – Vati says it's called jamming,' said Anna. ‘To put people off listening.'

‘Why would the BBC want to do that?' said Peter.

She batted him round the head, and grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

‘Not them, dummkopf!' she laughed. ‘It's our lot that does the jamming.'

Peter felt a bit foolish but he liked the way her hand lingered on his shoulder.

‘Vati would know how to fix the radio,' said Anna. ‘Not that I'd tell him about this. He'd be furious if he knew.'

Eventually, with much crackling and trial and error they settled down to listen. The radio was loud enough to hear the programme beneath the whistle, but probably not loud enough to be heard in the next apartment. They caught the end of a music programme,
Aus der Freien Welt
– From the Free World, playing swing and ‘hot jazz' – music that was banned in Germany because most of the people who played it were black or Jewish. The music sounded exciting, but it was difficult to really enjoy it with that undulating whistle. Then it was time for the news.

The newsreader was a British man who introduced himself as Lindley Fraser. He spoke German very well and with only a slight accent, and announced that American troops were arriving in great numbers in Britain.

This surprised Peter. Professor Kaltenbach had told him the Americans wouldn't be interested in fighting the Nazis – just the Japanese. He wanted to say something but Anna was concentrating so hard he did not want to interrupt. They both listened in silence. It seemed extraordinary, to be hearing someone else's idea of what was happening in the world.

When the news finished there was more dance music and they listened with great sloppy grins on their faces, shoulders twitching to the rhythms. Peter was enjoying being this close to Anna. Their heads pressed together against the radio speaker, he could feel the warmth of her body and the moistness of her breath. She shifted her legs a little, then slipped her hand over his. Peter's heart lurched in his chest.

.

Anna introduced him to her parents a couple of days later, when she invited him round for dinner. Peter found them rather intimidating. Colonel Otto Reiter was a large, imposing man with a steely gaze and brusque manner. Ula Reiter was chic and beautiful, and bristled with a formidable ‘can do' confidence.

But they did their best to make him feel at ease. As they sat round the dining table, he noticed how both of them spoke plainly about the war. It was not that they said anything ‘treasonable', but it was obvious they spoke their own mind rather than the official Party line. When Peter asked them how their son Stefan was getting on in Ostland, the Colonel replied, ‘I worry about Stefan every day of my life.' There was a long pause, then he said, ‘Napoleon invaded Russia a hundred and twenty-three years ago, almost on the exact day we did. He even managed to capture Moscow. Maybe we will too, eventually. But after that, who knows what will happen . . .'

They were fairly frank about the demands of the Nazi Party on their everyday lives. When Hitler's birthday came on 20th April Ula forgot to hang swastika flags from the window. Peter was there when Herr Pfister, the block warden, knocked on the door to demand she put them out. After he'd gone Ula grinned and said, ‘We forgot to do that when France fell, too. Pfister was livid. Two hours he gave us, to find a flag to put out, before he reported us to the Gestapo.'

For Frau Kaltenbach this would be a matter of deep shame. For Frau Reiter, it was something to laugh about. Peter got the impression these weren't deliberate acts of defiance. The Reiters just didn't care enough about these Nazi rituals and the obligation to remember them all.

Now, when Peter sat around the dining table with the Kaltenbachs, he wished he could speak more freely with them. These thoughts made him feel guilty and ungrateful and he tried to banish them from his mind.

.

Listening to the BBC became a shared secret for Anna and Peter. Sometimes they would do it together after school, when they were sure Anna's parents were away or would be back late. ‘Best not do it too often,' said Anna. ‘If Frau Brenner knew you were here when Mutti and Vati were out, she'd tell them for sure.'

‘Why don't you admit to listening? You know they do too,' said Peter.

‘I know,' said Anna. ‘It's silly. I just think it would be something else for them to worry about.'

Although the news was the important thing, they both enjoyed listening to comedies the BBC put out on their German radio programmes. There was the Berlin charwoman Frau Wernicke, and her grumbling about life under the Nazis. And there was
Gefreiter Hirnschall
– Corporal Numbskull – the reluctant soldier and the letters he wrote home to his wife. ‘They're clever, the British,' said Anna. ‘These characters, they're not stupid. They're quite sympathetic. It's like the British are saying “We know what it's like for you.”'

She had a good point. Peter liked the way the announcers always spoke in calm, matter-of-fact voices. Not like the hectoring tone of the German announcers. It made what they said seem more believable. It was clever, too, he realised, for them to use a British man who spoke German well, rather than a German exile. People didn't warm to traitors.

That spring, the news was good and it was bad. Japan was still on the march in the Pacific, winning a stunning victory in Singapore. The German army were still making deep inroads into Soviet Russia. General Erwin Rommel – the ‘Desert Fox' – and his Afrika-Korps were fighting with great success against the British in North Africa. All these things they had heard on their own radio news, and Peter and Anna were both surprised to hear the British announcer reporting them too. It made the rest of what they said more believable. But there was a quiet confidence in the BBC broadcasts. They seem to be saying, ‘We know you're doing all right at the moment, but one day the tide will turn.'

Peter had powerfully mixed feelings listening to the BBC. He liked the way the German radio made him feel the war was nearly over and a great victory was almost at hand. That way he could imagine it was unlikely he and Segur and the other boys would ever be called up to fight. But the BBC made him feel it was inevitable. Especially with all those Americans flooding into Britain. The Nazis had stirred up a hornet's nest, and one day he might be one of the boys who would have to take the consequences.